Inspiration is strictly a counter for death's embrace, but since there really aren't too many good lawtia players, hard to make a case to pack that counter. When people start switching from rasamx3 ss or shelby ss to chiruru+death's embrace+bitter destiny, then I'm sure it'll gain popularity.As for the power creep, please... I can only imagine game over files opening with that card.With rushes, you need to play units (imagine playing recovery powder in a rush file). Units like judie and sonic seraphm are much better sp gen since they also get a unit out. If there was no argument over those cards, I don't see why there would be much argument over this.With bigs, you want a sac unit out to trigger your first sp gen or sphere gen ss. Second turn you can spam recovery powder already. Killing the first 2 shades or owls will harm you in a lot of cases.Of course my current analysis might change with what they're doing for other cards in that set. Who knows what they'll do with instant summons.

Refess suxors, it's supposed to be the SP genning king of spheres, why does it rant rant rantYou gave Refess an excellent SP genning grim, powercreep is my favorite word!-With those rants aside, it seems kinda powerful but I don't know what Refess can do against EX Wiz + Owl. At least you can't play it first turn and it'll be a good add to lv3 files, it feels like I never have time to play recovery powder.

Thanks Worthing for putting so much effort in these kind of articles, and Alteil in general. I got confidence in your skills as player and having you as tester makes me feel more at ease.

Therefor i don't know if my worries concerning your article are valid. However i do like to say i don't like how Alteil's gameplay becomes so incredibly fast paced. Even faster generated damage and SP (de)gen can create a serious gap towards -slower build up- combo files.I'm personally hoping for more units with openphase counterskills, just like Set12 falkow. There is no balance when it comes to the expanding number of openphase remove/return/kill cards, and those that help prevent it. (i say units, because playing a preventional grim doesn't work well towards field buildup)

Romdeau wrote:I think the random factor on divine impact will keep it in good balance.

The problem with this card is that it makes too many other cards obsolete. Besides the fact that it'll help make recovery powder and inspiration useless in comparison, I didn't even think of the ramifications of opening with it. Hell, I can already see this card replacing emerald carbuncle in a lot of files. As a turn 1 play, you can play a lvl 4 on turn 2; or you can play 3 lvl 3s back to back on turns 2-4. Heh, and people complain about carbuncles already, imagine how much stronger the file would be when a player can play 4 of them by turn 5. Hell, I can already see this card replacing emerald carbuncle in a lot of files.

A major aspect of good balancing is to help ensure this doesn't happen, you don't want new cards to so easily make other cards obsolete. I think Dean's suggestion is actually a fair one, although I'd probably change it's effect to something like, "Deal 10 damage to target enemy unit; and then, you gain +1-2 sp."

Also, I'm not trying to disrespect the balance team or anything when I say this, but you should have a try to ensure they have a means to get feedback from the community. No matter how much you think you know about the game, no group of people can possibly come close to knowing as much as the entire player community combined. There doesn't seem to be a means for that yet for alteil that I can see, which is problematic.

I don't think this has been made clear, but the current effect of Divine Impact reads as: "Do 10 damage to a random enemy unit, and then you gain +2SP."

Charity is not made obsolete by this card, as it functions as a method to avoid disengage soul skills (such as returns or direct cemetery) with a chance that it will generate 1 or 2sp. At worst, it will refund the cost. While more expensive to use, recovery powder is reliable in what the effect is and has a chance of being more impactful during a mid-late game scenario when both Iczers have established their fields. It also does not require your opponent to have a unit fielded in order to generate SP.

Well to be fair the description we had to go by was, "Does 10 damage to 1 random enemy unit and gives you 2sp." The "and then" clause makes a big difference.

Anyway, by mid-late game sp gen cards are not nearly as helpful, so saying recovery powder is more helpful in these scenarios is kind of a moot point. SP gen is way more helpful early game when you're still trying to build your field. It seems that Divine Impact would be preferred over Recovery Powder during the early game due to the fact it's a lvl 1 spell (and it's therefor better when it comes to file flow). I guess the main question is, in what files would one prefer using Recovery Powder over Divine Impact?

Inspiration still needs a buff though. Having a card that's meant to counter one card out of a pool of 1,000 (and I'd argue divine impact could still do that job) is pretty weak imo.

So, if you're playing Shrine Knights or some form of LV3 Refess, Divine Impact is probably the way to go.

If you're playing Big Refess, you might as well play Recovery Powder instead. If your opponent doesn't have any units out, you can't sp gen.

If you need +2SP right now and don't care if your opponent gets +1, or if you're playing pirates with refess sphere, then Inspiration is the way to go. And Inspiration is still the only way to get a LV4 played by T2 if you don't get shaded.